According to my pathophysiology book….

We are all going to die.

Of something.

Odds are totally stacked against us.

This may seem common sense, however, as I have read further into my pathophysiology textbook (which tells me all about the inner workings of what makes us die), I am finding that to avoid this rather unfortunate phenomena, we must live in a bubble and eat nothing.  Except perhaps the occasional carrot stick and sip of purified water.  [note: NOT celery, despite it's reputation as the Ultimate Health Nut's Food.  Apparently even celery can have negative effects, between the high probability of pesticide residue, the relatively high sodium content (if you have high blood pressure, that is), and I might personally add the annoying little strings that get caught in your teeth.]

Here’s the partial running list of odd things I have discovered that contribute to disease.  While occasionally overstated : ), these are documented risk factors for disease, when consumed/experienced in large amounts:

*Animal fat.  Causes disease of the gut, including cancer if eaten in large amounts.  (toss out the lard, folks! guess the Chick-Fil-A cows are right after all….Eat Mor Chikn.  the LEAN kind of chicken.)

*Being tall.  Height and leg length, to be exact.  Long legs have a documented association with cancer.  (Not sure what you can do about this one–unless someone has figured out how to alter the gene pool….)

*Hot tea: in excess it apparently strains your gut too much and can give you anemia.  Pernicous anemia, to be exact, which to me sounds like a cross between a persnickity old woman and some variety of a garden cabbage. (It’s better not to ask where that thought came from, because quite frankly I have no idea either.)

*Steak or other charbroiled foods.  The old saying holds true, if it’s black and tastes terrible, don’t eat it.  (OK, maybe that’s not an old saying.  But now it is.)

*Long-term exposure to cold (we Minnesotans have known this for quite some time.  Then again, perhaps those that move to Florida for the winter have a better practical understanding of this one…) or repeated exposure to vibrating machinery in the workplace.  Both of these can cause spasms in your hands that turn your fingers blue.

*”Chinese-style salted fish”.  (Not even sure what this is). But apparently if it is fed to infants, it correlates with disease of the nose and throat.

*A cold or flu virus.  Those little guys can stick in your system and pop back out to to say hello in new and updated forms such as shingles or mononucleosis.  (Hence, I would remind you of the aforementioned “bubble” living idea…)

*Too much sunshine.  Can cause skin cancer. (I should have added in the introduction to this post that when in the aforementioned protective bubble, sipping organic water and munching on the occasional pesticide-free carrot stick, one should protect exposed skin as well…)

*Not enough sunshine.  Lowers the Vitamin D level.  (Note: to rectify this with the previous post, I guess there is a very delicate balance between not enough sunshine and too much.  Ask Aristotle, the master of the “Golden Mean” of the middle ground…)

And speaking of the middle ground, at least on this point, I think perhaps Aristotle had a good idea–that is of living in moderation.  Some sunshine but not too much.  Some steak but don’t petrify it black.  That sort of thing–common sense living.  Which, incidentally, after all, does not consist of living in a bubble and subsisting on carrot sticks (in my humble opinion, anyway!).  : )

Also, there are some things you can do something about (such as smoking, weight control, avoiding Chinese-style salted fish, etc.).  Common sense living dictates that you modify what can be modified in your lifestyle.  Other things you can’t help, when all is said and done (being tall, for one!).  So, I guess the conclusion is to do what you can to preserve your health (protect your body as the “temple”–1 Corinthians 6:19-20) but understand that we are all fallen creatures under the curse of sin.

This is why, ultimately, we are all going to get sick and eventually die.  It’s really not the excess of celery sticks, the hot tea, or the animal fat.  It’s our sin nature, given to us by Adam when he and his wife ate the forbidden fruit.

But we can rejoice, and not only rejoice but rejoice with HOPE, because the Second Adam has come and redeemed His children–both soul and body.

Romans 5:17:  For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Praise our Father that He has given us hope!

(All medical facts come from the book, “Understanding Pathophysiology”, 4th Edition, by McCance and Huether, copyright 2008.  Except for the part about celery, which I found after a little bit of internet research on various sites.  Exaggeration and hyperbole directly from The Mind of Kristina Michael, RN, October 2010.)

Reaching for the Moon

I am in the process of trying to make a few life changes, but in God’s sovereignty things aren’t coming together just yet.  In fact, with one change in particular, I feel like I am asking for the moon….

but I know the One who made the moon.

I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose,’
calling a bird of prey from the east,
the man of my counsel from a far country.
I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass;
I have purposed, and I will do it. -Isaiah 46:9b-11

Waiting

Waiting for something to happen.

I guess we all do it…

wait for the return phone call.

the e-mail.  (or any e-mail!).

the next song on the radio.

the next thing we’re going to eat.

the next person we are supposed to meet with.

the next church service.

the next major life event.

the good news.

the bad news.

the next exciting or interesting thing.

to see how someone will react to what we just said.

and so on….

When really, perhaps we should be living in the moment–rejoicing in the small Grace of breathing and the consequent Grace of living.  We might just be a lot happier people.

How To Not Say Anything

I haven’t forgotten about this blog, I really haven’t.

I just have a policy that if I don’t have anything worthwhile to say, I won’t write about it.

But my question of late is, shouldn’t we have something worthwhile to say most of the time?  I mean, if the Lord is working in our lives and is active in caring for us, teaching us, and loving us, we ought to always have something to share and rejoice in.

Worth pondering, anyway.

For now, though, I am going to go to bed thanking the Lord for the gift of sleep, and being forever grateful that His mercies that are both new, and abundant, every morning…and by His grace, I will wake up tomorrow with my eyes wide open to see His loving hand working in all the details of my life.

The End

I was reading in my Pathophysiology textbook recently and came across a picture…a picture I had to cover up because I could no longer look at it.

At first, it was in some morbid way, fascinating…the gaping wound, the structures beneath the skin that should never have been visible, the hesitation marks on the skin where he couldn’t quite get the courage to do it.

And then I looked harder, for a moment.

He had dark hair–I could tell even though the picture was only of a portion of his neck, because of the remaining stubble there.  I wonder why he didn’t shave before he did it.  If he even thought about it.  Maybe life was so out of control that even something as simple as shaving felt like too much.

From the little that could be seen, he looked young…time had not yet etched itself in to his skin.  I wondered what his face looked like…if there would have been clues on his face or in the depth of his eyes that would have told someone of his pain.

Instead, the horrible truth of what he thought of his life and how it should end stared at me through the page in wet shades of red.

I wonder why he did it.

I wonder if he had people that loved him.  Or if he just didn’t know that they loved him.

I wonder if he asked God why his life was the way it was.  Why it was so hard…why it felt so hopeless…

I covered the picture with a bright pink post-it note.  It didn’t really help the deep, painful, heavy sadness in my heart, because I know what is under it’s florescent opaqueness.  Just as the brightness of the post-it note is now highlighted on the page, his story–and what I don’t know if it–is highlighted in my head.  What is truly etched into the page, under the post-it note, is etched into my heart.  I can try to cover it up, along with the rest of the suffering of the world…

Or I can face the suffering.  Look it in the face, hate the sin that caused it, and pray for grace for this fallen world.

Pray for love in my heart for those around me–love that I say out loud so that those I know are certain that someone cares for them.

Pray for the people who have no hope, that Jesus would shine rays of joy into their hearts.

And pray for Jesus to come soon.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

-Revelation 21:6

Single

“Single” is a descriptive word.  It is an adjective–as in, a “single hamburger”.  A “single pencil-eraser”.  A “single person”.  It means, one.  Alone, by itself.

Let’s be honest, here, friends, this isn’t always easy.  I have recently realized how cranky I get when doing things I feel I shouldn’t be doing, but am because I am not married (i.e. mowing the lawn, placing paving stones in the yard, etc.).  I am the first to tell you it’s lonely looking over at the other side of the bed and seeing a pillow (or, incidentally, a book…or a forgotten pencil from my study session…or a cell phone…well, you get the idea.)

However, I think perhaps the word “single”, or at least the idea of the word in this context, should be a verb, not an adjective.  It should be something that implies action, being, moving, changing.  Changing my thoughts and my heart to realize that the world does not exist for me (and, incidentally, neither would a husband!)  Moving to avoid stagnancy in spirituality–instead always being in motion toward sanctification.  Being the kind of daughter, friend, sister, aunt, grand-daughter, employee that the Lord calls me to be.  Acting to decisively make positive steps toward spiritual growth, as well as toward career development, church involvement, etc.

Not looking at others wondering “why them? why not me?”.

Not letting sadness and lonliness take over my heart so that I am constantly dwelling on them.

Not allowing the ease and flexibility of this period of my life to foster selfishness.

Realizing that this state of life may be permanent, and not being paralyzed by that thought or feeling fearful of the future.

And most of all, learning to trust the great Planner who knows what is best for me and has plans for my life beyond my wildest imagination.

The stuff of life

It has been interesting for me to note lately how much of life truly is mundane.

I was recently watching “You’ve Got Mail” with Meg Ryan…she lives in the perfect apartment, her hair is always nicely done (even when she’s got a “horrible cold”), the color palate of her clothes go beautifully with her skin tones at all times, and even her “mundane” is made interesting to us, her viewers.

In contrast, my house is too often cluttered.  My hair is rarely perfectly done (despite my best efforts!).  My clothing, while I do make a good effort to look nice when leaving the house, certainly would not come close to measuring up in an episode of “What Not to Wear”.

And my mundane, whatever way you look at it, certainly is not interesting.  I brush my teeth, do my laundry, answer e-mail, go to work, put gas in my car, make my bed (ok, let’s be honest here, sometimes make my bed) , take out the trash, weed the garden, pick up groceries, go through mail, pay bills, talk on the phone…pretty much like anyone else does, I suppose.  I can tell you right now that no one would ever want to put it all in a movie.

And yet, I have also been learning lately, that although the mundane makes up the majority of life, the fact that so much IS mundane is what makes the interesting things so interesting.  It gives joy and excitement to what should be joyful and exciting.  Otherwise, we’d have nothing to compare it to.

And of course, I can’t help but think….

He that is faithful in little, is faithful also in much.